As socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, our Party must get a new look and make new accomplishments. As the saying goes, it takes a good blacksmith to make good steel. For the Party to unite the people and lead them in carrying out our great struggle, advancing our great cause, and realizing our great dream, we must unwaveringly uphold and improve Party leadership and make the Party still stronger.

Ensuring Party self-governance is exercised fully and strictly is a journey to which there’s no end. The future of a political party or a government is determined by whether it enjoys public support. We must guard against and correct with resolve the practices the people oppose and resent. The whole Party must be soberly aware that the governance environment our Party faces is complex, and that so too are the factors undermining the Party’s advanced nature and purity; prominent problems of impurity in thinking, organization, and conduct in the Party have not been solved root and branch. We must fully recognize the long-term and complex nature of the tests confronting the Party as they relate to governance, reform and opening up, the market economy, and the external environment. We must also fully recognize the intensity and severity of the dangers of a lack of drive, incompetence, disengagement from the people, inaction, and corruption. So we must focus on solving problems, maintain strategic resolve, and ensure strict Party self-governance.

 Uphold and strengthen overall Party leadership and ensure that the Party exercises effective self-supervision and practices strict self-governance in every respect;

 Take strengthening the Party’s long-term governance capacity and its advanced nature and purity as the main thrust; take enhancing the Party’s political building as the overarching principle; take holding dear the Party’s ideals, convictions, and purpose as the underpinning; and take harnessing the whole Party’s enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity as the focus of efforts;

 Make all-round efforts to see the Party’s political building enhanced, its theory strengthened, its organizations consolidated, its conduct improved, and its discipline enforced, with institution building incorporated into every aspect of Party building;

 Step up efforts to combat corruption and continue to improve the efficacy of Party building;

 Build the Party into a vibrant Marxist governing party that is always at the forefront of the times, enjoys the wholehearted support of the people, has the courage to reform itself, and is able to withstand all tests.

Taking a clear political stand is the fundamental requirement our Party must meet as a Marxist party. The Party’s political building is of fundamental importance to the Party as it determines the direction and efficacy of Party building. The primary task of political Party building is to ensure that the whole Party obeys the Central Committee and upholds its authority and centralized, unified leadership. All Party members must closely follow the Party’s political line, strictly observe its political discipline and rules, and closely align themselves with the Central Committee in terms of political stance, direction, principle, and path. Every member of the Party must hold the Party Constitution in great reverence, act in strict accordance with the code of conduct for intraparty political life under new circumstances, and make intraparty activities more politically oriented, up-to-date, principled, and effective. We must guard against the rules of business dealings eroding intraparty conduct, and foster a healthy political atmosphere of integrity within the Party. We must improve and implement the systems of democratic centralism, and practice both democracy-based centralism and centralism-guided democracy. This means we should both give full play to democracy and practice centralism on this basis. We must foster values like loyalty, honesty, impartiality, adherence to fact, and integrity; guard against and oppose self-centered behavior, decentralism, behavior in disregard of the rules, a silo mentality, unprincipled nice-guyism, and sectarianism, factionalism, and patronage. We must resolutely oppose

double-dealing and duplicity. All Party members, especially high-ranking officials, must strengthen their Party consciousness, political awareness, and political ability. We must regard it as our fundamental political responsibility to be loyal to the Party, share the Party’s concerns, fulfill our obligations to the Party, and work for the people’s wellbeing, and forever preserve the political character of Communists.

2. Arming the whole Party with the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era

Theory is fundamental to Party building. Our revolutionary ideals soar beyond the skies. The noble ideal of Communism and the shared ideal of socialism with Chinese characteristics are our source of strength and political soul as Chinese Communists; they also form the theoretical foundation of Party solidarity and unity. Our top priority in building the Party through theory is to stay true to our ideals and convictions. We should make all Party members keep firmly in mind the Party’s purpose, have unwavering convictions as Communists, resolve the fundamental issue of the worldview, outlook on life, and values we should embrace, and maintain deep belief in and faithfully practice Communism and socialism with Chinese characteristics. We will foster a Marxist style of learning, and make it regular practice and an institutionalized requirement for all Party members to gain a good command of the Party Constitution, Party regulations, and related major policy addresses and to meet Party standards. We will launch a campaign on the theme of “staying true to our founding mission”to enable all Party members, especially officials at and above the county and director level, to arm themselves with the Party’s new theories and become more purposeful in working tirelessly to accomplish the Party’s historic mission in the new era.